Ellen Lundgren

Cat & Dog Timelapse from Ellen on Vimeo.

Two 4×6″ commissions of a cat and a dog as Christmas gifts. Forgot to record the 2nd half of the dog drawing, so sorry for that.

Visit http://helloellenellen.etsy.com!

I’ve listed a new Treasury listing made completely of objects made with steel. I hope you like it!

Life is crazy. I don’t have midterms. Just projects. Multiple projects for each of my 4 current classes. What is food? Sleep? Hah!

Nah, actually, I’m doing pretty well on sleep thanks to my anti-anxiety medication. It’s made my life so much better as well. I’m so much more attentive, relaxed and productive with my SSRI prescription and I can’t imagine why I didn’t try them sooner.

Lately I’ve been inspired by the figure in my artwork for my printmaking class. Printmaking is an entirely new technique for me, but so far I’m really enjoying it. The assignments as far as content are completely open to whatever we want to do other than what technique we should be using. I was a struggle at first coming up with a concept to work with, but I finally decided to work with ‘identity.’ I’ve been working on a series of self-portraits somewhat abstracted so it may or may not be me. The ideas are still a bit rough, but an example of a diptych I printed are hardground etchings of my hair.

No images yet, but perhaps I’ll post some later. I’m trying to get this concept to carry over to my Image Studio class as well, but they’re such different techniques, I’m having some difficulty. Oh well, it’s something to ponder through the second part of the semester…

First day of classes. I have a pretty good schedule. A potential new job lined up, and a few commissions with flexible deadlines. Always nice.

I’m excited about these commissions though. One is for the mother of a friend of mine at school, so I get to draw this cute picture of him as a kid with his younger sister (always good for lighthearted teasing). His mother is also a greatly encouraging and lovely person, who I have oddly never met, but we’ve talked a lot on Facebook. Ahh, modern technology. I’m always fascinated with how relationships are facilitated online.

The other commission is actually from my mother. She has sent me a bunch of scans of old family pictures to choose from, and I get to select three to draw, that will then hang in 4×6″ art show in my hometown. I’m excited to draw some of these older portraits of great grandparents. I’m also quite fascinated with family history, and to draw these makes me feel so much closer to them.

Well, lunch time!

First real update in a while. This summer has gotten away from me. I’m moving apartments tomorrow, and classes start in a couple weeks. Here is a time-lapse video of my recent commission. The song is “Overboard” by Ingrid Michaelson.

Portrait Drawing Time-lapse #2 from Ellen on Vimeo.

On April 17th at Broward College Central Campus the Amazing James Randi will be speaking at Bailey Hall on “Faith Healers: Fake Healers”!

ADMISSION IS FREE!

The event will begin at 7pm. This will be a joint effort to educate the public on one of the most crafty types of scam artists and to encourage attendees to donate to Light the Night. If you are in the South Florida area, please come and support this event!

You can join the facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/302649616469920/

If you haven’t heard of Light the Night, or wonder why you should get involved, click on this link to learn more: http://foundationbeyondbelief.org/LLS-lightthenight

Hope to see you there!!

p.s. – Our team name is “Cancer Fighting Infidels” (C.F.I.) :-)

The exact number of people that attended the Reason Rally is unknown, but thanks to Michael Shermer we have a video showing just how huge and successful this event was. We even made Yahoo News. I tried to capture the immenseness of the crowd with my camera, but failed:

A very concise and detailed re-cap of everything that happened on the stage of the Reason Rally has already been written, so my re-cap will be a personal account as one of the tens of thousands who attended the rally.

Most of the day was very misty and humid. Toward the middle of the afternoon the sky began to rain off and on. I saw people in the crowd offering their umbrellas to people that had no defense against the wet weather. Many people around me still ended up damp and cold because the wind blew the rain under our umbrellas or ponchos, but this didn’t seem to affect anyone. I was very encouraged by the goodness and strength that was demonstrated this day.

Many signs were being displayed and a few people showed up in costume. The most memorable, of course, was Jesus riding a T-rex, or Jesusaurous Rex (Raptor Jesus?). Also, a woman constructed a fetus in a uterus out of flesh-colored balloons and wrote “baby-eating atheist” on it, in parody of a stereotype of atheists. I also saw a clown head nailed to a life-sized cross.

As was expected, a group of Christians showed up to warn us that hell was the end result of our non-belief and imply that they know more about how the world works by faith than physicists know by research. They parked their signs on the right side of the rally near the latrines. Under every sign a discussion was in progress. One video from youtube shows famous youtuber, AronRa, also participating in heated debate.

I have to admit I was baited by one sign that read, “IN FIVE SECONDS I CAN HAND YOU PROOF THAT GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH.” It turns out the key word was “Hand,” because he didn’t explain it in five seconds. He “handed” the baited non-theists a pamphlet that took about five minutes to read and contained the same old junk that has been refuted an infinite number of times.

What I found most intriguing about these people was that Jesus Christ himself was walking amongst them and they didn’t even recognize him (he can be seen in the above picture to the left).

I saw people from all ages and all ethnicity in the crowd. During the performance by Bad Religion, I saw some children (7 to 9 years old) rocking out with their parents. Some younger people began a mosh pit toward the front of the stage while the older adults stood calmly around them. Everyone seemed very tolerant and considerate of each other.

According to an article by Friendly Atheist, the Reason Rally will not be happening for at least another 5 years. But hopefully this event has become what all expected it to be: the beginning of a larger and stronger movement for secularists. I at least know that for me it was the most amazing experience of my year thus far. The bus was cramped and leaky, I was cold and shivering by the end of it, and my bank account needs a break, but that was all worth attending this rally.

Thank you, thank you 4.5 billion times to everyone who was involved in making the Reason Rally what it was.

In 1859, Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species. Darwin’s theory of natural selection was intended to explain the biological mechanism behind the wide diversity of life, but his theory was soon usurped by social scientists and popular culture to justify sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, and other prejudices. This social Darwinism extended into the budding fields of anthropology and religious scholarship as well with the notion that technologically advanced civilizations were seen to be superior to primitive tribal societies, and the “natural” social evolution of religious beliefs was a linear progression from animism, to polytheism, to monotheism, and ultimately to atheism and pure scientific reason, with the reasonable, rational, and not coincidentally, white male elite at the top of this social structure.

It would be nice to believe that the justification of social iniquities based on questionable and biased scientific evidence was merely an artifact of the 19th century, but social Darwinism persists in science even to this day. Whether it’s a study to try and demonstrate that men are better than women, or research claiming that atheists are somehow intellectually superior to believers, science in the 21st century is still plagued by prejudices which infect scientific inquiry and promote the same social ills of the past that many have fought to eradicate.

It’s upsetting when a scientist, arguably a rational, reasonable person, uses flawed data, fallacious arguments, and faulty conclusions to legitimize prejudice and an assumed “proper” social order. It’s probably even more upsetting than when a religious person cherry-picks from scriptures to justify prejudice because science ideally should be objective and rational. But scientists are human and capable of allowing prejudices and preconceived notions to cloud their judgement despite the evidence. Science should never justify sexism. Reason should never justify racism. Many view science and reason as the cornerstones for a better tomorrow, a tomorrow free from the constrictive reins of fear, superstition, and hate that come from ignorance.

Though there is still little diversity among the prominent representatives of the so-called “New Atheist” movement, it would be a great disservice to atheists in general to claim that atheism is inherently racist, sexist, or homophobic simply because its most vocal members and leaders are predominantly heterosexual white men. There is definitely a privilege divide that needs to be rectified, though, and it’s important that the atheist movement address this issue of the lack of diversity among its representatives than to let it slip by without speaking up. It is also vital that those within the atheist community speak out against racism, against sexism, against homophobia, against any prejudice that would try to infect and ultimately undermine this movement.

Science is a fantastic tool for helping us discover wonderful and amazing things about the cosmos we inhabit, but like any tool, science can also be used as a weapon to inflict pain and suffering upon others. Science can send humans to the moon, help humans observe stars and galaxies, and heal humans when we are ailing, but science has also been used to create powerful instruments of destruction which we humans all too often use upon ourselves to oppress, maim, torture, and kill. The poisonous fruits of science, artillery, toxins, nuclear bombs, biological weapons, or other tangible instruments of destruction go hand in hand with the prejudices and fears which encouraged the first man to take the first tool and use it against his fellow man as a weapon. These prejudices, racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, differing religious or political ideologies, or simple fear of the unknown and unfamiliar, bastardize the tools of science and reason just as they bastardized the tool of a flint knapped hand axe so many millennia before. Atheists must not allow these prejudices to persist within the atheist movement lest the entire movement be branded as prejudiced and hypocritical.

“The movement has united. That is that the Reason Rally already has succeeded in one respect: in that American Atheists, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, The Council for Secular Humanism, The Secular Student Alliance, The American Humanists Association–we are all on the same side, doing the same thing, fighting the same battle as equals for the first time ever.”
~David Silverman
from his interview on the Living After Faith Podcast (LAF00052)

This is it. Only a day and a half left!

In a podcast episode of Living After Faith we learned that State Parks has estimated a minimal attendance of 30,000 people! The Washington cherry trees will be in bloom, famous secularists from all walks of life (scientists, comedians, politicians, etc.) will be making an appearance, and all who attend will be surrounded by thousands of like-minded freethinkers!

This is sure to be an event that we will never forget.

When I found the secular community in my home in South FL, I finally felt like I could be myself. I felt like I really belonged. That sense of belonging, of being a part of something instead of standing alone, is very important, even if it is just emotionally soothing. But this is so much bigger than a little secular community in South Florida. This is a union of secularists from all over the country, some from all over the world. These are people who can understand being afraid to come out to their society about not believing in a deity. People who have the same interest in science, reason and rationalism.

Comprehending just how many people will be there with similar ideals and fears as me gives me an entirely different feeling. I guess the best way I can figuratively describe it is that when you stand with a platoon, you can relax–but when you are standing with an entire army, you can feel safe. I don’t know most of you, never met you, but I can identify with and relate to all of you. And you can probably identify with and relate to me. Out of everything going on at the rally, I am most excited to stand amongst all of you on common ground and purpose.

Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togevver, today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam wivvin a dweam.

~ The Princess Bride

There are lots of different ways to be married In the Old Testament, including (but not limited to) a widow with (no male offspring) and her dead husband’s brother [Gen. 38:6-10], a woman and the man who raped her [Deut. 22:28-29], a soldier and a female prisoner of war [Deut. 21:11-14], and a handful of others including polygamous marriage and, I suppose, one man and one woman.

In the New Testament, Jesus has a few things to say about marriage. Hearkening back to the Genesis story of the creation of Adam and Eve, Jesus specifically states that marriage is a lifetime contract and, except in the case of infidelity, divorce is strictly forbidden [Matt. 19:9]. The disciples ask him if it’s better not to marry at all, and Jesus responds “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given.” [Matt. 19:11]. Basically Jesus is agreeing with the disciples’ observation that it’s better not to marry if they plan on hanging out with him. This fact is laid out even more clearly in Luke 25:26, when Jesus says “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” On top of that, Jesus expects his followers to sell everything they own and live an ascetic lifestyle contemplating none other than God.

Paul emphasizes these points even further in his first letter to the Corinthians. Echoing Jesus’ opinion of marriage versus discipleship, Paul explains “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry.” In other words, if you absolutely have to have sex, then go ahead and get married. But it’s clear in both Jesus’ and Paul’s opinion that not being married is clearly the superior option. “I want you to be free from anxieties,” Paul writes.

The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord. [1 Corinthians 7:32-35]

Paul sums up his argument that remaining single is preferable, saying “So then, he who marries does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better.”

Jesus was not the proponent of the kind of family values we understand today. He stated this quite succinctly when he said, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Reflecting the sentiment seen in the Luke passage above, Jesus goes on saying, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me…. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” The choice to follow Jesus would wind up breaking families apart (and indeed has done so to countless families for a long time now).

So according to Jesus and Paul, being unmarried was preferable to being married. But humans being humans, people found sex to be far more interesting than praying, and thus, marriage continued on down through the centuries. And in accordance to the rules laid down in the New Testament by Jesus and Paul, the marriage was codified and ritualized by the Church to ensure that the masses attending masses would grow to provide a steady stream of resources for the increasingly monolithic institution of Catholicism.

What I find particularly interesting about the Catholic Church’s rigorous adherence to rules concerning marriage is how at the same time it managed to completely ignore the very clear stipulations both Jesus and Paul made about giving away material wealth. Remember, it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. I wonder if people like Pope Benedict XVI, Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich (adulterer!) remember that bit? [Matt. 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25]

The whole Evolution versus Religion disagreement is a tired one. However, here’s something not many would expect: The Theory of Evolution and religion have something really big in common; something not many people talk about.  Both theories’ (because all religions are theories) become questionable when the Theory of Realism’s flaws become apparent. First, what’s with the controversy between Evolution and religion?  We all know it has to do with creationism versus science, but what are the details?

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, expressed in his On the Origin of Species, is one that’s influence is still strongly seen in the science and philosophy worlds today. It is one that cooperates with the philosophical theory of realism. It has influenced genetics, cell and molecular biology, and the social and psychological sciences, among others. Darwin basically reaches two theoretical conclusions in his Evolutionary Theory.

First is Natural Selection. After studying nature on the Galapagos Islands, Darwin came to believe that nature does not produce differences within species. Instead, animals’ natures are selected by them, based on what works best for them. So, when there are differences in a species, it is through said species’ natural selections that they differ. For instance, Darwin found that some finches had differing beak sizes. These differences, Darwin believed, were directly related to their differing food sources; some finches needed smaller beaks to consume their food while others needed larger ones, thus their beaks developed according to what worked best for them when collecting their food.

Second is Decent with Modification. Decent with modification is where “survival of the fittest” comes into the picture. Basically, those animals who have the best survival qualities will seek to mate with those of the opposite sex with the best survival qualities. And animals with the best survival qualities will mate more often than weaker animals. Thus, over time, the weak traits of a species will be eliminated entirely.

Religious institutions have a problem with basically every aspect of Darwin’s theory because it contradicts their beliefs. For instance, if Darwin’s Theory is correct, the Christian Bible’s story of Adam and Eve, and the creation of the world, is contradicted. Thus, religious institutions don’t so much voice a problem with Darwin’s theory as renounce it altogether.

Given the feud between the two it’s almost inconceivable that the two could have something in common. In fact, they have something very big in common.  They’re both incapable of conclusively proving either of their theories due to the arguments against the Theory of Realism.

Realism is a philosophical theory that holds that sensory data, i.e. sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing, is a reliable source to our knowledge. Put less abstract, this theory holds that the world we experience is real. Everything we feel, taste, hear, smell, and see is real. When I bite into a carrot, that carrot is really there and I really taste it.  When I see a train go by, the train is real, I’m really seeing it, and all of the people on the train are real.

A way to express the Theory of Realism is with the movie, The Matrix.  In the computer-generated matrix, the Theory of Realism is false; when Neo goes to work or hacks computers, he’s really just laying stationary while plugged into a machine. However, in the real, non-computer-generated world, when Neo eats the disgusting oatmeal they’re stuck with, he’s really eating it and it’s really there.

Proving the validity of the Theory of Realism in our lives, however, is difficult as there is a debilitating argument against it. It’s called The Brain in the Vat argument; this argument states that we could very well be a brain in a vat (jar), with our brains creating the very world we sense and experience. Thus, the very life we live could be created by our minds, just like Neo’s world in the matrix.

Think about it. How many times have you dreamt something and believed it was real? How many times have you believed that you saw or heard something when nothing was there? Our senses have failed us, and they will continue to fail us. In some ways, the Brain in the Vat argument goes back to Renee Descartes’ Meditations, in which he proclaimed that in eliminating all that he “knew,” the only thing he could be sure of was that he existed; he said, “I think, therefore, I am.” He knew he had the capacity to think, but that was all he could prove. In what sense we exist beyond our thoughts and minds, however, cannot be proven. All we have is empirical evidence to prove our existence beyond our thoughts and because said empirical evidence is gathered through our senses, we must first prove that our senses are reliable. In order to do that, we must utilize our senses and thus, an infinite loop is created.

And this is what both Darwin and religious theories have in common. They both rely on the Theory of Realism for their theories to be proven true. So, neither can be true until first the Theory of Realism is proven to be true.

______________________

Allison Dean is an agnostic who studied Philosophy at the Texas A&M University. She now writes for medical malpractice lawyers and is a guest blogger in her spare time.

Virginia transvaginal ultrasounds. Oklahoma zygote personhood. Rick Santorum. I am so gobsmacked, I seriously have no idea what to say. It’s as though Republicans have deluded themselves into believing that the past, a time when people were tortured and killed for speaking out against the Church, when women were treated as baby-making appliances rather than human beings, when the genocide of people with skin browner than Rick Santorum was considered by the elite of Europe to be a righteous act, that this tarnished and violent past of ours is some sort of Golden Age to which we should return. Progressive Americans keep shouting at Republicans like Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, and so many others under the banner of the GOP, to pull their heads out of their asses and join us in the real world of the twenty-first century, but apparently there is some sort of euphoric mass hallucination going on in their bowels that makes it difficult for them to hear reason.

Republicans and conservative Christians (often the same hat turned inside-out) keep touting the tired (and false) rhetoric that they are anti abortion because they are “pro life”, yet their track record for protecting the lives of Americans is extremely poor. Republicans like Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, are the ones who seek out war in every corner of the globe, and they are perfectly willing to send out young American men and women to get maimed and killed. Republicans like Rick Perry support the death penalty. Republicans like those in Virginia or Oklahoma who have passed, or seek to pass these “personhood” amendments, are not concerned about the health and well being of the mother, but only the seed she carries. Republicans are not “pro life”. They are “pro control”.

Just as the grounds at Versailles are meticulously trimmed, with nary a branch or leaf out of place, the closer one approaches the palace (because even nature itself was under the direct control of the king), so too is the Republican party seeking to dominate, to control every aspect of life, particularly women’s lives, not simply from birth, but from conception until death. And even in death, conservative Christians demand obedience. Whether it’s Mitt Romney’s Mormons baptizing the dead, or Rick Santorum’s Catholics praying for salvation, Republicans are making it clear that the reasoning behind their decision making does not come from science, but from superstition.

When Progressives speak out against this vile and unwanted penetration of backward religious ideologies into politics, religious leaders have cried foul and made claims that we are inhibiting their religious liberty. Yes, conservative Christian Republican men have convinced themselves that they are the victims here, that they are the persecuted ones, because something like Obama’s health care mandate for birth control is somehow violating their freedom of religion. Conservative Christians have no qualms about insinuating their bigoted, backward beliefs into government in order to create invasive moral legislation, yet they shed such crocodile tears when government demands they obey the law of the land. Some have even gone so far as to claim they are being torn between obeying the law and obeying their religion, as though the two were fundamentally incompatible. This suggests that the only government conservative Christians want to obey is a theocracy, a God-fearing President touting the Bible as the divinely mandated Law of the Land.

Clearly I’m more than a little angry about this. How did such backward-thinking, future-fearing, superstitious men come to be such a dominant voice in American politics? These are people who should be reduced to a very vocal minority fringe group, types one might find in Monty Python’s Life of Brian shouting about lost hammers and nine-bladed swords. This is not a group of people that should be taken seriously at all. Yet we must because they so dominate American politics.

I sincerely hope that ideological yahoos like Rick Santorum or Bob McDonnell truly are just a very vocal minority, and that they do not represent all who label themselves Catholic or Christian in this country. I sincerely hope that politically conservative folk, particularly conservative and/or Republican women who are on the Pill, recognize the danger that comes from the twenty-first century Republican party, and that they choose to distance themselves from it. I sincerely hope that everyone will see the contemporary Republican party to be just as vile and repugnant as the Westboro Baptist Church.

But I don’t want to delude myself.

The Freethinkers of WWU is promoting an open forum for discussing various views on religion. There will be a panel which will consist of several different folks representing their respective beliefs including Humanism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. If you’re in or near Bellingham, Washington and are interested in finding out more about this event, or are simply curious about an interfaith/humanist forum, please check out the event page on Facebook:

Ask Us Anything: A Multi-Religious Discussion Panel

Alain de Botton really loves architecture. He’s not alone in that. I’m particularly fond of architecture as well. When I was at college and uni, architecture was one of the things I particularly enjoyed studying in my art history class. I learned all about post and lintel construction, various flavors of arches and vaults, all the vocabulary of church construction from apse to narthex, classical revival, gothic revival, blahdy-blah revival, ranch style, and so on and so forth. Buildings are indeed art, and like art, architecture can be plain or extravagant, ugly or beautiful, filled with messages and meaning or simply l’art pour l’art. But while I tend to look at art for art’s sake (I was never very good at interpreting meaning in art), de Botton wants the art of architecture to be didactic. Art and architecture should have something to say about their time and place, and have something to teach us as well. In trying to get behind de Botton’s reasoning for wanting to build an “atheist temple”, I sat down and watched his three-part series The Perfect Home based on his book “The Architecture of Happiness”. It did give me a bit of insight into what the purpose of an atheist temple would be. But is an atheist temple necessarily a good idea?

Civilizations have distinct styles to them. Architecture will reflect not only the time and place of a culture, but their mores, their ideals, their notions of what it means to be human in that era and society. The ancient Egyptians were grandiose with their geometric architecture of cylinder columns, rectangular sculptures, and (of course) pyramids. Greek civilization was all about the column, and Roman civilization all about the arch. Gothic architecture was inspired by the earlier Romanesque, but with the added technological achievements of the pointed arch and flying buttress. Neoclassical looked back to the architecture of the Greeks and Romans as a way to express the 18th century values of democracy and reason. Early 20th century architecture looked toward the future with the hope of a brighter tomorrow, building towering skyscrapers, designing streamlined structures which evoked the wonder and promise of emerging technologies.

But when tomorrow got here, it wasn’t what we were expecting. Instead of flying cars and teleporters, we got disillusionment as governments stripped the people of civil liberties. People are living in poverty in so-called “first world” countries, and there is an ever widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. In the United States, infrastructure is collapsing and little is being done to renew it, let alone make it grander. Transcontinental high-speed rail is still a fanciful dream, and urban sprawl continues unabated at an alarming rate. Tomorrow has failed us, and we have no reason to build grand architecture for the modern age because we have lost our hope in modernity. Instead, we’ve begun looking to the past for “golden ages” that we can imagine to have been a better place and time. We retreat to the familiarity and safety of the past because the future has become a scary and forbidding place.

This retreat into the past isn’t the same kind of looking back into history that happened during the neoclassical 18th century. At that time, the architecture of the ancient Greeks and Romans was used for inspiration, modified with contemporary 18th century technologies and sensibilities to create something new out of something old. Neoclassical architecture, despite looking like ancient construction, was actually quite modern for its time because people were building for the period they were living in rather than trying to re-create an imaginary idealized Rome or Athens. What is happening now, as de Botton points out in his television program, is people are looking back to the past in an effort to escape their disillusionment with the Now. People design buildings with architecture from the past because modernity, and the architecture of modernity in 20th century designs, has become symbolic of the abysmal failure of progress. In the interest of saving time and money by making buildings fast and cheap, buildings become strictly utilitarian with little regard for outward appearance and absolutely no regard for how a twenty storey concrete slab of apartments would affect the mental health of its tenants, let alone the aesthetic appeal for the community. Cookie-cutter homes punctuated with pig snout two-car garages pepper the landscapes of suburbia, and the only thing that makes them discernible from one another is the house number. Even in religious buildings, architecture has gotten lazy and uninspired. In the United States, the architecture of many churches seems to focus only on what is utilitarian, with very little grandeur on their facades. Larger churches and mega churches often look more like warts on the landscape in the same way that megalomarts such as Costco and Wal-Mart already are. In larger cities there are churches more like the cathedrals one would see in Europe, yet even these structures can sometimes seem lackluster.

Alain de Botton says that it is usually places of worship which often wield the most impressive architecture, but this isn’t always the case. Many secular public buildings can and do have beautiful architecture, though de Botton would argue that what is lacking in these buildings is the didactic component. Secular buildings, through architecture, should inspire the kinds of ideals a culture values, and I think this is the point he’s trying to make with his suggested atheist temple. De Botton wants to build a beautiful building that might speak to people and inspire them to achieve greater things both as individuals and as a part of a culture. But what I don’t understand is how he expects to achieve this by building a 46 meter black obelisk in the heart of London.

His temple design is a 46 meter tower, one centimeter for every million years of Earth’s existence, with a one millimeter sliver of gold at the base to signify the amount of time humans have existed on the planet. On its interior walls will be depictions of significant geologic features and other aspects of Earth science which can be graphically represented. It’s not clear if this building will be a place for folks to gather and relax and talk about science, or if it will be a solitary place for piety (whatever atheist piety might be). The whole thing has an air of an outdoor art installation by an eccentric sculptor who wants to try something serious for a change, but fails.

When I look for inspiration about my place in the cosmos, I don’t go into a building, I go outside and look at the stars. I investigate the strata of rocks on a hillside. I peer at the critters in the wetlands. I splash about in tidepools. I take walks in the woods and listen to birds sing. What I don’t do is go into a building to contemplate my navel. But that’s precisely what de Botton suggests we do with his obelisk to Earth’s history. The fictional obelisk in Kubrick’s vision of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001 instills more awe in me than the notion of a dimly lit phallus in the center of London. A temple for atheists is a foolish idea.

Yet de Botton has a valid point, I think, in that we do need more inspiring architecture. But the only way we’re going to achieve that is to find something to which we can aspire. In the United States, I can guarantee that it’s not atheism that inspires people. We need to have hope that tomorrow will be more promising than today, but as long as people continue to cling to the values of bygone eras, or focus on material wealth over cultural richness, we’re going to continue to have dull, uninspiring architecture. Building a black obelisk to atheism is not going to inspire people. Building a new infrastructure, and investing in the future of our culture, is a far better plan.